Islands
by Hushbye Hayley
Summary: They were islands, close, and yet so far. But that was okay. Caina oneshot. Spoilers for Plague.


**Caina fic. I am very proud of this uvu **

**Disclaimer: If I owned GONE, things would be very, very different.**

Islands

"Leave me alone."  
Three words. But not the ones she wanted to hear. Three small words that meant something completely different to the words her heart wanted to hear.  
She reached out for him, wanting to touch him, to hold him close, to feel his lips against hers, to...  
But he shook her off, his eyes dark with fury as he spun around to raise his hand and to use the power in them to end her miserable excuse for a life. This very same power had saved her just a moment earlier. How ironic.  
And she just stood there, waiting for the death blow. She knew that, no matter what, if she pushed him, he would break in one of two ways. Either way was fine by her.  
Either he would kill her...  
Or kiss her.  
But neither of these never happened.  
She walked forward and rested her head on his shoulder, letting him feel her tears. He didn't shake her off this time, but he didn't embrace her, either.  
Another piece of irony: all this time, she'd been denying him what he wanted so badly: her love. Or rather, her body. Now she was practically begging him to take it- to take both of them- and he made no move.  
She brought her hand up to rest on his other shoulder, and gently moved it up to stroke his long, dark hair.  
Before she had broken, she had seen him as simply a boy to tease, a boy to manipulate, to lead one way and drag the other. But humiliation, starvation, fear, anger, near death experiences...  
All these things had softened her.  
She was becoming romantic.  
Right. Her, romantic? Had she told the cocky, arrogant, flirtatious young spark of a girl that she would fall in love, much less with someone who was more likely than not unable to return her feelings, and the fact that said love interest was someone she had teased and tortured in the past, she would have laughed at her future self.  
She would have laughed at her future self anyway. She wasn't beautiful anymore, not the way she had been. She was a broken, bedraggled mess of a person. She couldn't even call herself a person anymore. She had sinned.  
She had eaten human flesh.  
She had known Panda. Liked him, even. Although, the little bugger had been whiney and annoying.  
That was no excuse. No excuse at all. She had eaten Panda.  
That was when she had given up. Officially, she had given up.  
No, wait, she had given up before that. At the mineshaft, with the psychopath's demise and what she thought had been her own, had hoped would be her own.  
But it was not to be.  
She had passed out, with two bright pools of quicksilver gazing down at her. They weren't normally bright, but, she realised as she lost consciousness for what she was convinced would be the final time, they were bright with tears.  
She had awoken, covered by a blanket at the back of a SUV. She had groaned, and sat up, her hand on her head. It hurt like nothing fucking else.  
"Are you okay?" His eyes wide, he'd looked back at her.  
She'd only nodded; she couldn't say a thing. The sight of his face had taken her breath away. A strange feeling, like what a shimmer would feel like, was weaving its way around her heart. It felt like she was laughing and bleeding, or maybe crying and flying, all at the same time.  
And she knew there was a reason she had never fallen in love before.  
It ruined her.  
He had become the King of her heart. And he didn't even know.  
Until now. She had just confessed, just had a verbal and emotional splurge, and then thrown herself off a cliff to save a load of kids whom she had spent less than an hour with.  
Before, she would have never had done that. Never. Or would she? She wasn't certain.  
Nothing was certain.  
"Baby." she whispered. She felt him tense under her forehead. She had never used that nickname in such a causal way before. She had used it in various mocking and patronising ways, but not in an honest and... For lack of any other word, loving way before. "Caine, baby."  
Her hand ran deep into his mane of black hair, and she pulled him close, resting her cheek against the side of his neck. She let the hand that was hanging lose wrap around his waist.  
He still didn't react. He was distant. So fucking distant. She hated him for it.  
Another thing on the list of things she hated him for. It was a much larger list than that of the things she loved about him.  
But that was okay. She'd been putting up with most of these things from day one.  
Wasn't there that proverb somewhere? Or a quote? She was no Astrid; she wasn't some literature monster. But she know the quote: "No man is an island."  
What a load of bullshit. She had her very own island standing right in front of her, standing on her arms, for God's sake.  
She herself was an island. A wild island full of exotic plants, and bright colours, luring adventurers in, only to find that they were trapped, and the island was like one huge Venus fly trap. She ate them up, chewed them up, and spat them out.  
He was a tropical paradise, all golden beaches and lush valleys. But travel to the very core of the island, and you would find a huge, dark rainforest, full of great beauty if you knew where to look, but otherwise, would be the death of you.  
They were both liars, manipulators, evil, twisted excuses for human beings.  
And they were both separate.  
But islands sometimes joined, didn't they? When something huge, like a tidal wave or earthquake broke the earth apart, islands were forced together by the sheer force of it all.  
And if this whole mess wasn't something huge, she didn't know what was.  
She pulled her hand out of his hair and cupped his face. Forcing him to look at her, to see the honesty in her eyes as she prepared herself to say what she would say next.  
"I wasn't lying, you know. When I said I love you."  
Not I loved you. I love you. The promise that those three feeble, strong words still stood. Which they did.  
She watched the hard steel in his eyes change to the swirling quicksilver she had seen only once before.  
But this time, there were no tears.  
His lips were on hers before she could breath. His arms held her close, and when he was done, he rested his forehead on hers. The stone she had dropped in the ocean had caused two islands to collide.  
She waited for him to say it, to return what she had just sent him, but he remained silent.  
The two islands stood together, in the metaphorical wreckage of their collision.  
He brushed a loose hair behind her ear, and she just laughed, as the rope of fire tightened around her heart.  
They just stood there, until they heard a howl of pain from below.  
"Penny." he groaned, exasperated.  
She laughed, and rolled her eyes.  
"Well, I suppose we'd better get her back up." he drawled, sounding bored.  
"C'mon, Caine. Let's get the little bitch up here." She was laughing now, trying to hide it.  
He gave her his charming smile, and took her hand. Two islands, standing on an island. It certainly was something new.

Diana's tears stained her face. She had overlooked one part of her lover's island: the dormant mountain.  
Caine's island was a ticking time bomb, and she had been a fool to think that she could escape in time.  
Caine was a volcano. He would explode when and where he wanted.


End file.
